Sent some btc into a black hole

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I was trying to send some btc to a newly generated address so that I could memorize the private key, and then have my BTC in my brain. My clients copy paste function wasn't working correctly, so I decided to type the address in manually. I was lazy, so I didn't double check the address. at least it was only .25 BTC. Just thought I'd share my story with you guys. Moral: If you ever manually type an address, double check it.

[1715669899]

1715669899

[1715669899]

1715669899

[1715669899]

1715669899

[pirateat40]

I would say you were lucky, getting an address just right takes talent.

[FreeMoney]

Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I was trying to send some btc to a newly generated address so that I could memorize the private key, and then have my BTC in my brain. My clients copy paste function wasn't working correctly, so I decided to type the address in manually. I was lazy, so I didn't double check the address. at least it was only .25 BTC. Just thought I'd share my story with you guys. Moral: If you ever manually type an address, double check it.

Seriously unlucky if true.

Please share the correct and incorrect address.

[adamstgBit]

omg 0.25BTC... you'll be kicking yourself in 2 years

in the beginning, people did lost of stupid mistakes like that... but with 100's of coins.

i hope in the future they will Re-mine the coins lost in the black hole

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

(...)

Seriously unlucky if true.

Please share the correct and incorrect address.

Seriously unlucky? Why's that?

Correct: 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjwAMFZG9CJh
Incorrect: 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjeAMFb7AX2K

After looking thorougly at both addresses, looks like I accidentally took the end of one address in my addressbook, and used it in the end of the incorrect address. Silly me.

[pirateat40]

(...)

Seriously unlucky if true.

Please share the correct and incorrect address.

Seriously unlucky? Why's that?

Correct: 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjwAMFZG9CJh
Incorrect: 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjeAMFb7AX2K

After looking thorougly at both addresses, looks like I accidentally took the end of one address in my addressbook, and used it in the end of the incorrect address. Silly me.

wow, that was way off.

[speeder]

Seriously unlucky because the way the adresses are generated, means that a random error being valid is VERY, VERY, VERY unlikely.

Even if you mashup 2 adresses at a random point, this is unlikely. You have a ungodly amount of bad luck...

[bbit]

Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I was trying to send some btc to a newly generated address so that I could memorize the private key, and then have my BTC in my brain. My clients copy paste function wasn't working correctly, so I decided to type the address in manually. I was lazy, so I didn't double check the address. at least it was only .25 BTC. Just thought I'd share my story with you guys. Moral: If you ever manually type an address, double check it.

lol sorry had to giggle

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

Seriously unlucky because the way the adresses are generated, means that a random error being valid is VERY, VERY, VERY unlikely.

Even if you mashup 2 adresses at a random point, this is unlikely. You have a ungodly amount of bad luck...

Really? I wasn't aware of that. Wow.

[adamstgBit]

Seriously unlucky because the way the adresses are generated, means that a random error being valid is VERY, VERY, VERY unlikely.

Even if you mashup 2 adresses at a random point, this is unlikely. You have a ungodly amount of bad luck...

LMAO ya man.. WOW, quick Spock compute the odds!

[pirateat40]

Im standing with my "Lucky" comment.  Go buy a lotto ticket.

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

(...)

Seriously unlucky if true.

Please share the correct and incorrect address.

Seriously unlucky? Why's that?

Correct: 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjwAMFZG9CJh
Incorrect: 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjeAMFb7AX2K

After looking thorougly at both addresses, looks like I accidentally took the end of one address in my addressbook, and used it in the end of the incorrect address. Silly me.

Wait a second. Just figured something out. I'm absolutely sure I typed in that last part correct now that I think back. I remember typing in 9CJh at the end. I think I messed up where the "e" is supposed to be a "w" and my client must've tried to correct it! I'm using the electrum client. I'll talk to the developer about this.

[nmat]

Im standing with my "Lucky" comment.  Go buy a lotto ticket.

i.e.: turn on solo mining for a while

[Matthew N. Wright]

Sent some btc into a black hole

You sent bitcoins to http://rochellehub.co.cc/donate.html ?

[Gavin Andresen]

Neither of those addresses are valid according to my bitcoind:

Code:

$ bitcoind validateaddress 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjwAMFZG9CJh
{
    "isvalid" : false
}
$ bitcoind validateaddress 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjeAMFb7AX2K
{
    "isvalid" : false
}

The checksum in addresses is 4 bytes, so there is a one-in-four-billion chance that a random typo would get you a valid address.

[pirateat40]

Well if this is true, that's not good.

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

Neither of those addresses are valid according to my bitcoind:

Code:

$ bitcoind validateaddress 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjwAMFZG9CJh
{
    "isvalid" : false
}
$ bitcoind validateaddress 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjeAMFb7AX2K
{
    "isvalid" : false
}

The checksum in addresses is 4 bytes, so there is a one-in-four-billion chance that a random typo would get you a valid address.

Not sure I understand. If they aren't valid, why are they in the block explorer?

[Explodicle]

omg 0.25BTC... you'll be kicking yourself in 2 years

in the beginning, people did lost of stupid mistakes like that... but with 100's of coins.

i hope in the future they will Re-mine the coins lost in the black hole

Someone mentioned this idea a little while back:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=44511.0

[Mushroomized]

I want bitcoins in my brain, brb memorizing privikeys

[theymos]

Neither of those addresses are valid according to my bitcoind:

My client (version 0.3.15) says they're valid.

Bytecoin has mentioned that the checksum doesn't work as well as you would expect.

[Gavin Andresen]

D'oh!  I was running a -testnet bitcoind....

Never mind.

[pirateat40]

D'oh!  I was running a -testnet bitcoind....

Never mind.

hehe, no worries you have enough on your plate.

[Maged]

(...)

Seriously unlucky if true.

Please share the correct and incorrect address.

Seriously unlucky? Why's that?

Correct: 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjwAMFZG9CJh
Incorrect: 1AYSPTVt8WytG12Kz9guUpXjeAMFb7AX2K

After looking thorougly at both addresses, looks like I accidentally took the end of one address in my addressbook, and used it in the end of the incorrect address. Silly me.

Wait a second. Just figured something out. I'm absolutely sure I typed in that last part correct now that I think back. I remember typing in 9CJh at the end. I think I messed up where the "e" is supposed to be a "w" and my client must've tried to correct it! I'm using the electrum client. I'll talk to the developer about this.

There's your problem:

Code:

def bc_address_to_hash_160(addr):
    bytes = b58decode(addr, 25)
    return bytes[1:21]

What's terrible about this is that the checking code is already implemented in DecodeBase58Check. I suspect that this was a simple oversight, since it'd take only a few minutes to fix this.

[ThomasV]

my bad, the bug was in Electrum. I just fixed it and released a new version.

[Atheros]

Bytecoin has mentioned that the checksum doesn't work as well as you would expect.

How could it not?

https://en.bitcoin.it/w/images/en/9/9b/PubKeyToAddr.png
If one screws up the base58 address at all, wouldn't that mean that the 25-byte binary address is different?

[theymos]

How could it not?

https://en.bitcoin.it/w/images/en/9/9b/PubKeyToAddr.png
If one screws up the base58 address at all, wouldn't that mean that the 25-byte binary address is different?

I'm not familiar with the details, but here's a quote:

This may be an appropriate thread to mention that the the "checksum" at the end of an address does not effectively prevent single character errors or transpositions.

For instance https://blockexplorer.com/search/1ByteCoin shows that

Code:

1ByteCoinAddressesMatch1kpCWNXmHKW
1ByteCoinAddressesMatch1kpCxNXmHKW

are both valid addresses even though they only differ by one character.

Similarly, the valid addresses

Code:

1ByteCoinAddressesMatchcNN781jjwLY
1ByteCoinAddressesMatchcNN718jjwLY

only differ by one transposition.

ByteCoin

[btc_artist]

i hope in the future they will Re-mine the coins lost in the black hole

Maybe if they were categorically proven to be invalid addresses.